


SNAFU

by nimrodcracker



Series: i'll sleep with the stars tonight [4]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Aromantic Shepard, F/F, Gen, Horizon (Mass Effect), POV Second Person, Shepard-centric, tbh more characters are involved but they're just mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 04:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8087728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimrodcracker/pseuds/nimrodcracker
Summary: You know why she turns her back on you. You know why it can't be like old times. What has she said that you haven't asked yourself already?Nothing.____a horizon-centric fic: pre, during and post.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [You And I (Stripped)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olaqthsSRpA) \- PVRIS
> 
> Shepard's gender is up to you, but this was written with femshep in mind. Specifically, my OC, Hermina Shepard. Consider this as a companion piece to [Alligator Blood](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3181778).

You are a soldier, through and through.

But not in the literal sense. Not when the the chill of a metal implant rests at the base of your skull, not when pounding headaches are a certainty after every fight.

The way you surge across the battlefield engulfed in biotic flame, they call you by another. Anything standing in your way is annihilated, either with spray of shells or a crushing elbow to the face.

They don't work on targets you can't see, though.

-

There's just something about the SR2 that makes your teeth tingle. It's a feeling that lingers like the itch of a scab, in everywhere but Mordin's lab.

The answer reveals itself when you check on the salarian one day, but you think better of requesting Mordin to do the same for your cabin. Cerberus expects treachery from you - and you for them - and that makes it risky. You've no idea what they'll do to you, nor do you wish to find out.

Thanks to Miranda, you know Cerberus didn't lodge a control chip in your brain.

They said nothing about monitoring devices. 

Within a week, you begin to wonder if your thoughts are truly your own.

-

Some nights, you wake up gasping for air, reaching for a suit breach that isn't there.

-

It's been two years, but the Citadel still looks the way you left it. Nothing stops you from exploring - you insisted on going alone, however much Miranda disapproved - yet you're at a familiar office within minutes.

Anderson isn't surprised to see you. Neither is Udina.

Eventually, you ask Anderson a question; one that's nagged at you before you disembarked the SR2. Maybe even  _before_  receiving his email. 

_How's Chief Williams doing?_

_Shepard, you know I can't tell you that. It's classified information._

You clench your jaw. Staring at the Presidium's lake hides your frown, so you do that. 

_All I can say is that she's alright._

You smile. That's all you wanted to know, anyway.

-

The Illusive Man studies you when he spills all about Horizon, and you wonder if it's a courtesy or a cross-examination. 

No matter. Your face is a mask, and you've worn it ever since batarians descended on Mindoir. 

You bustle about the ship, darting from the armoury to the lab and even the medbay because there's so much to prepare and the Normandy will enter the Iera system in a matter of  _hours_.

But you're doing it wrong; that's not your sequence of pre-battle prep. You've yet to glug down canisters of carb-loaded sports drinks. You've yet to check out your guns from the armoury nor lather them in gun oil, inside and out.

You spend your time pacing in your cabin instead, once filing reports has lost its mind-numbing edge. 

If the crew notices your break in routine, they keep it to themselves. What surprises you is that Garrus, hot-headed and frank, is strangely silent. Turians bare their feelings like their facepaint, strokes vivid and proud, so his behaviour confuses you. 

He doesn't hesitate when you ask him to go groundside with you, though. In fact, he  _offers_ , the moment you walk into the main battery. 

And maybe, that says enough. 

-

If the villa didn't teach you this, then combat experience did. No matter what, the mission comes first.

Save colonists. Investigate the Collectors. The Illusive Man defined that for you. 

So you define your own. 

Save colonists. Investigate the Collectors.  _Find Ash._

Fuck what Cerberus thinks. You'll never take orders from the group that orchestrated the shitfest on Akuze. 

Callous is how you think of yourself, when every petrified colonist you pass makes your chest ease because it's not the familiar bun and white-pink hardsuit you've come to love - but the further you run, the more you wonder if your heart's been stomped into dirt together with the Collectors you've killed. 

For all you know, they could've loaded her into their vessel. And as far as you know, anyone aboard that ship is as good as dead.

Your biotics flare; your blows turn vicious. 

You don't just kill Collectors; you  _crush_  them like bugs. Carapaces are cracked open, shotgun shells splatter blood on armor and your skin.

You're ready to charge at the Praetorian when it looms over, but a trio of talons hook themselves around your bicep and your biotics fizzle out. 

The crates you both hide behind rattle from the Praetorian's particle beam. Annoyed, you cry out and struggle out of his grasp, but Garrus shakes you by the shoulders and to the realisation of how thoughtless you've been. 

This is not what a soldier does. 

This is not what an N7 operative does.

You survive because you stubbornly cling to life, not because you foolishly toss it aside. To die is to lose, and you  _detest_  losing. 

That's how the three of you take down the abomination; ripping it from the sky and burying it under crates, before you surge forth to blast it open with shotgun shells at point-blank range. 

As always, you win. 

-

You're ready to tackle Delan just to shut his mouth when she appears.

By now, you're frazzled. When the Collector ship launched itself into space, it took not just Horizon's colonists, but also ripped out the chunk of hope you dared to feel. 

Seeing her approach you dashes everything from your mind; you're soldier enough to not drop your gun, but you're human enough to feel relief course through your body. 

 _Relief_. Cerberus didn't construct a cyborg, they resurrected a person. 

You. 

You're not broken, and you're not incapable of feeling. You are  _not_  a machine. 

You feel the need to hug her. That's what people do when they reunite, right? 

But it's Ash that hugs first, speaks first because you've always held back. You've always cowered behind your own barricades of guilt, built with the bodies of those who died so you could live. 

Forthright and headstrong, Ash barrels into conversation as she does enemies, and you wish you possessed half of her courage. 

Ash relies on the words of dead poets to speak, while you have nothing. Nothing but your inability to express your emotions, so that's why you treasure this moment in hushed silence. 

The only thought that crosses your mind is that she's safe. 

And to you, that's all that matters. 

-

You know why she turns her back on you. You know why it can't be like old times. What has she said that you haven't asked yourself already? 

 _Nothing._  Her suspicions are the doubts you've internalised since waking up on an operating table.

The tension on the shuttle ride back stings your skin. All you see are glittering stars swimming in the void of space as you stare out the window. 

You figured out Jack the moment you cornered her on Purgatory's docking bay. Jack presents herself as a badass bitch - if the tattoos don't ward people off, her abrasive personality will.

It's a facade. A front. You know, because you play that game too.

You catch Jack watching you when she thinks you aren't looking. 

Coming from her, that's as good as concern.

-

Joker tries to emphatise. He extends a hand of support in his usual clumsy manner when your mindless steps take you to the cockpit.

You bat it away with brusque words.

What's there to say? You expected this to happen. You knew things couldn't be so simple. And no, talking about it won't dislodge the metaphorical knife buried in your chest.

So you leave.

You don't want to explode. You don't want to rage at someone who meant well, to sever ties with someone you can completely trust aboard the ship. You have too little of them around right now.

You never were good at expressing anything but anger.

-

You bump into the thief along the hallways of the Command Deck - or rather, the thief bumps into you.

(Coincidentally, it's at the antechamber between the tech lab and the CIC; a blind spot in Cerberus' onboard surveillance web.) 

And of all things, Kasumi invites you to have a drink with her. 

You expected anything but. She'd agreed to map out Cerberus' surveillance network aboard the Normandy for you, and you've been expecting an update since then.

But you know she's been struggling to deal with ghosts of her own, ghosts  _you_  conjured when you destroyed Keiji's graybox. 

So you say yes. 

(Your teeth don't tingle when you enter Kasumi's quarters, but that slips your attention.)

Sake for her, non-alcoholic Tupari for you. You're not as religious as you think you should be, but some rules you refuse to transgress. Honestly, you're more unsettled by Kasumi's unusual supply of Japanese wine - the Normandy's bar doesn't stock Earth varieties.

Two glasses later, Garrus stumbles into the observation deck, mandibles twitching in unease. His worry varnishes the moment he sees you, and you pour him a shot of turian brandy when he joins you both at the bar.

(Given Horizon, he'd wondered if you needed a friend, but you weren't in your cabin, nor with Joker in the cockpit. Not even with Chakwas in her clinic. So he panicked.)

Drinks loosen all your tongues, and you tell each other stories from a better time. Kasumi, of Keiji. You and Garrus, of shenanigans from the SR1.

You admit, you accepted Kasumi's offer thinking she was the one who needed comforting, not you. 

You should've known better. 

-

That night, you dream of cringe-worthy greeting cards and poetry slams, and you wake up wondering why your dreams aren't filled with flames and fire and the chilling finality of asphyxiation.

-

Days later, Kelly shoots you a funny look when she mentions unread messages on your terminal.

You're curious at first. Kelly's the epitome of calm and collectedness; it's necessary in her job. 

Fine, it's more of subtle cues in Kelly's expression than a look. It's her eyes, shifty and avoidant, because she knows you're incredibly attuned to the emotions of others. Just not to yours. 

Then, you remember how Cerberus screens your mail, and your mood sours. 

You check them in your cabin, and you're glad you did. If this is why Kelly's displaying signs of guilt, you'd probably knock her out at the CIC. Or flatten her with your biotics. 

Your boiling fury simmers as you read Ash's email. Sinking into your chair with the lethargy of a worn veteran, something else blooms in your chest, its warmth stretching to the tips of your fingers in the frigid shipwide atmosphere. 

That something makes you compose a reply that very night, before the words lingering in your thoughts slip away. 

You think it's hope. That Ash doesn't despise the monster she thinks you've become by fatal association. That you can still salvage what you shared with the smartass soldier - whatever it was. You still don't understand it yourself. 

But you hold it close, like the flame of a candle. 

Your light in the dark.

-

You read the etching on your Carnifex, wiping off the dust on the handgrip on your fatigues. Took you a week of carving with the knife Zaeed gave you, but you love your handiwork, regardless.

You're no fool; the old man gave you one of these  _goddamn useful_  things because he's waiting to see if you can split open krogan head plates like he has. 

Unfortunately for him, you don't plan to try.

You hold your pistol under the light of a desk lamp, illuminating etchings of letters that form words and then a sentence. Poetry on a gun; two of her loves, joined as one. No doubt she'll love it.

Your omnitool beeps. 

You drag your booted feet from the desk back to the floor. Kelly's sent you the list of reports you've requested: more light reading for restless nights. While Chakwas is helping you ease into a healthy sleeping schedule, you're still largely cybernetics and bone weave. Sleep doesn't come naturally to an unnatural body. 

Work beckons, so you power up the terminal on your desk. It so happens that you glance at the picture frame beside it. 

It changes nothing. No matter what, you'll show her your Carnifex.

You are a soldier, and that's why you carry on.

**Author's Note:**

>  _but for now we stay so far_  
>  _'til our lonely limbs collide_  
>  _i can't keep you in these arms_  
>  _so I keep you in my mind_  
>  ([~](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olaqthsSRpA))


End file.
